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Staff Association representatives have written to senior management alleging further breaches of the CSIRO enterprise agreement regarding the application of rules governing potential redundancies.

This development in the campaign to stop CSIRO cuts comes as Chief Executive Larry Marshall continues to push his controversial plan to sack hundreds of scientists during the federal election campaign.

With growing community concerns about the future of CSIRO, new union analysis shows that Larry Marshall’s proposed cuts will be deeper than previously estimated with 317 staff due to be made redundant.

Management documents provided to the CSIRO Staff Association show plans to declare nearly 10 per cent of existing staff as potentially redundant. Out of this group, individual staff will then be identified, potentially translating to approximately 317 job losses.

Management documents have shed more light on plans to cut hundreds of jobs from CSIRO with no Australian state or territory spared from the cuts.

Redundancy advice has been provided to the Staff Association for Business Units including Land and Water, Oceans and Atmosphere, Agriculture, Minerals, Manufacturing, and Food and Nutrition as well as Finance / Project support.

Documents for Data61 and the Clayton Laboratories workshop positions are still to be provided to the union.

The recent proposal to cut another 350 jobs from CSIRO – on top of the 1,300 positions lost since 2014 – has drawn widespread condemnation from home and abroad.

Public rallies in Melbourne, Hobart and Canberra attracted thousands and international criticism of the cuts which has ranged from from editorial pages to the the New York Times to comments from Former Vice President Al Gore and international diplomat Mary Robinson.

The protest against these cuts aimed at research into Oceans and Atmosphere, Land and Water, Minerals and Energy, Manufacturing and Digital Productivity look set to continue.

I believe there is a group called friends of CSIRO being set up, so far in at least Victoria and Qld and they are looking for people interested in other states.
The mission in setting up Friends of CSIRO is opposition to the CSIRO cuts – and the organisers are hoping it will be a national.